The machining of dental pieces often requires rotary type tools that produce significant risks to the operator of the tools. For example, the dust and metal grindings that often are produced can be harmful if breathed by the operator. Thus, facemasks are needed if the machining takes place in an open environment. Also, eye protection, such as goggles would be needed since flying debris can be dangerous to the operator's eyes. Furthermore, it is even necessary to wear protective garments to further protect the clothes and body of the operator from flying debris. For example, to use the types of workstations described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,880 to Schmidt et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,357 to Bodenmiller would require all these types of protection.
There are many problems associated with using all of this protection. For example, using eye-protection, face masks, gloves, and protective garments are both uncomfortable to wear and make the tooling operation even more difficult. Additionally, replacing the eye-protection, masks, gloves and protective garments is an additional expense since these materials wear out over time.
The flying debris from using the tools causes dust, grindings, and other waste material to be sprayed all over the entire office area. The operator then has the added time burden and labor expense of having to clean the workstation areas and surrounding room space. This problem becomes compounded if some of the grindings are valuable metals and materials that could have been recycled, and/or reclaimed.
There have been several proposals over time to overcome the problems presented above. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,084,684 to Saunders; U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,903 to Piet et al.; U.S Pat. No. 4,697,854 to Lunsford; U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,925 to Elledge et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,170,027 to Brodersen; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,380,077 to Puschner et al.
However, several of these inventions require expensive and elaborate components that are large and cumbersome and must be floor mounted or supported by specialized carts. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,697,854 to Lunsford; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,170,027 to Brodersen. Still furthermore, many of these devices use vacuum lines and filters, if any to pull in waste dust. None of these cited patents do allow for any easy access to removing all of the waste materials. Additionally, none of these patents describe an easily accessible storage rack for holding and storing tools between operations within the enclosure. Still furthermore, none of the enclosed workstations use any magnification glasses to magnify the work being performed in order to help the operator.